Foreign workers, Foreign Problems

The local headlines for the last few days have been dominated by the news that there are plans to house up to 500 foreign workers in the Serangoon Gardens area. Residents in the estate have voiced their concerns about security issues and social problems that will arise from converting the former Serangoon gardens Technical School in Burghley Drive into a foreign worker dormitory. This forms the perfect backdrop for my research topic, “ Are foreign workers in Singapore being treated fairly?”

In a dialogue held recently with MPs of the area, residents voiced their concerns regarding the dormitory. Some spoken and unspoken fears range from the valid like foreign workers littering, loitering or spitting, to the imaginative and absurd ones like stealing, molesting children, creating a foul smell, speaking (too) loudly and robbing old people. In general, these residents acknowledged the important contribution of the workers, but they just do not want them housed in their estate, so close to their community.

With this information in our hands, I would like to do an attitudinal survey that aims to answer my topic research question. In particular, I would like to find out how the students from NUS feel about having foreign workers living among them, and their attitude towards them. It would be interesting to see the results of this research since the target respondents belong to the educated and privileged lot of the Singapore population, and they of all people should be able to know the importance of the workers to our economy. They should be able to differentiate between valid and invalid concerns better too.

My hypothesis is that the population with more affluence and power would be more adverse to the workers living so close to them. By interviewing both local and foreign students and knowing about their family income level, we may test this hypothesis. Through my research project, perhaps we can all get a better understanding on foreign workers, and hopefully correct misunderstandings about the workers, so that we can accept them as part of our daily lives.